This megathread is intended to explain everything about the monthly New Moon Day event and provide you with information on how Darkrai works. If you still have any questions, feel free to comment!

It will be pinned every month around New Moon day, as we still get a LOT of confused people not understanding how Darkrai works. We hope this clears things up and saves a lot of duplicate posts. 

As of March 2026, Mew was added to the game and will also start visiting on NMD from April onwards.

 

New Moon Day

New Moon Day is a celebration, like Good Sleep Day, except this one revolves around the New Moon instead of the Full Moon. It lasts for 3 days, with the middle day being the New Moon day.

The major benefits of NMD are

-        Pokémon have a lower chance of being full after you feed them biscuits

-        Increased shiny chance. Exact odds are not know for both of these.

-        Some random sleep styles appear besides your main style

-        Darkrai may appear

This might be a great moment to try to capture those 16 pip mons, as you can feed more biscuits before they get full. Or to use the incense of the one Pokémon you really want a shiny of!

 

Useful links

Original first announcement: https://www.pokemonsleep.net/en/news/323637343532393039353638393137353035/

Lunar calendar indicating the next NMD: https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/

 

Darkrai

The current special guest of New Moon Day is Darkrai. Darkrai is a special Pokémon called a Mythical. This means there is only one available in your game. It costs 25 ‘pips’ to befriend and you can only befriend one. And it will arrive fully bare, without subskills or ingredients in slot 2 and 3, and with a neutral (Bashful) nature.

Darkrai as caught

Its gimmick is you use an item called Eureka Seed to unlock every stat one by one. You get one from the Professor on your first catch, subsequent Eureka Seeds have to earned by befriending Darkrai again and again during future New Moon Days.

Every 25 pips, you gain 1 Eureka seed for the one Darkrai in your box. You will NOT get another Darkrai. The skills are randomised and CAN be rerolled by using more Eureka Seeds. Every New Moon day, Darkrai can spawn again, with the odds being more likely if it doesn’t appear on the first night (or 2 nights). It’ll always be back eventually, so there’s no rush. Please do NOT use a Master

Biscuit on it! It is a waste of your Sleep Points.  

https://www.pokemonsleep.net/en/news/333233323437373335313836363533313835/

Starting from the NMD at 21 october, Darkrai will always receive 3 pips upon encounter. So even people not spending biscuits on it will be able to catch it eventually.

 

In general Darkrai is considered whale food.  If you have a lot of money to spend on the game, you can basically keep buying Master Biscuits to feed Darkrai, gain more Eureka seeds and mould your perfect mon. This gets very expensive, so in general it isn’t advised to do so unless you really want to pay for it. You could also just toss it a biscuit every NMD just here and there, or when it’s hungry, and build it slowly that way. It’s not necessary for the game in any way.

Guides on Darkrai

In depth look at Darkrai Subskills by Jjetpack4: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonSleep/comments/1kxrbku/an_indepth_look_at_darkrai_subskills/

An in depth post on why you shouldn’t catch it as a new or F2P player:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonSleep/comments/1l3agsn/the_darkrai_dilemma_dont_feed_him_seriously/

 

Mew

On Pokémon Day 2026 (27^(th) of Feb) Mew was announced. First 30 days of snapshot surprise, after which Mew will start appearing on New Moon Day. This will start from APRIL 2026.

 

Announcement: https://www.pokemonsleep.net/en/news/333731343130383939323833343736343932/

Mew will function like Darkrai, but with the gimmick that its Main Skill can be changed into several options, of which Tasty Chance S and Charge Strength S look the most promising right now. Or an Ingredient build with leeks or avocados. Or just have fun with Metronome. It is a jack of all trades, master of none, as it is in the main games with 100 in all stats.

A slight difference is that Mew comes with 2 ingredient slots (Egg, Herb) and a subskill slot (SLUM) already filled. It also has its own Eureka seed (Mew), so you can’t mix and match with Darkrai.   

 

Mew as caught

Mew’s stats:

RaenonX: https://pks.raenonx.cc/en/pokedex/151

The new skill, Versatile: https://pks.raenonx.cc/en/mainskill/info/34

Serebii: https://www.serebii.net/pokemonsleep/pokemon/mew.shtml

Skill: https://www.serebii.net/pokemonsleep/mainskills/versatile.shtml

 

At this point we do not know exactly how Mew will be added to NMD, if it’s going to rotate with Darkrai, but this post will be adjusted when information is released.

In general same rules apply, do NOT waste Master biscuits on Mew. Just catch it eventually. It’s not a game breaker so no hurry.

 

New Moon Day Bundle

As with most events, NMD has a bundle. It costs 1200 diamonds, can be bought once per NMD, and contains:

-        1 Ultra Biscuit

-        3 Great Biscuits

-        10 Poké Biscuits

-        3 Friend Incense

Analysis by ProfessorProtecc can be found here, spoiler alert, it’s pretty good!  https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonSleep/comments/1krp54h/new_moon_day_darkrai_event_bundle_vol_1_analysis/